Soviet Dissidents Research Articles

Critical Psychology in Relation to Political Repression and Violence

For psychologists and mental health workers to devote themselves to the topic of political repression and violence is a relatively new departure. There can be fewdictators and death squads exceptedwho will not welcome this sign of their concern and commitment. From the pages of this issue of the International Journal of Mental Health, we obtain a refreshing corrective to the image of professionals complacently lining their pockets on the largely self-created problems of affluent Western societies. We see here research undertaken out of a genuine sense of identification with the oppressed, often carried out far from the comfortable surroundings of the laboratory or consulting room, and sometimes at considerable personal and professional risk. In such company, is not a psychologist a superfluous guest? In this article I shall argue that a critical stance in relation to one's own profession can only enhance the effectiveness of this work. Simply by undertaking it, in factby striking out into areas that are far removed from the daily bread-and-butter of the helping professionsthe authors in this journal issue have already assumed such a stance. Psychological studies of political repression and violence have until now been few and far between. The names of Lifton, Bettelheim, and the Soviet dissidents who have dealt with nuclear war, concentration camps, and political abuses of psychiatry are deservedly well known. However, this work does not constitute a tradition on anything like the same scale as the veritable industries that deal with relational disorders,

Release of Soviet Dissidents Continues

Release of Soviet Dissidents Continues

Release of Soviet Dissidents Continues

Release of Soviet Dissidents Continues

Release of Soviet Dissidents Continues

Release of Soviet Dissidents Continues

Stoppard's Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth: The Uses of Shakespeare

"I haven't even got the courage of my lack of convictions," quipped Tom Stoppard in 1974, but a few years later his writing became explicitly political. Professional Foul (1977), Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (1977), Night and Day (1978), and Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth (1979) all exhibit a concern for what Stoppard rather coyly called "topics of the day.” In this period he marched with Amnesty International, protesting the treatment of Soviet dissidents, wrote to The Times concerning the Czech government's harrassment of Vaclav Havel, and in 1977 visited his native Czechoslovakia where he met the playwright Pavel Kohout and the actor Pavel Landowsky, whose theatrical output had been confined to writing and performing abbreviated versions of Shakespeare in private living-rooms. Not surprisingly, considering his overall career interests, Stoppard's political phase proved to be shortlived, but in Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth he created an effective and suggestive piece of theater.

Vassill Grossman's Zhizn' i sud'ba: The "Life and Fate" of the First Soviet Dissident Novel

Vassill Grossman's Zhizn' i sud'ba: The "Life and Fate" of the First Soviet Dissident Novel

Concern grows over Soviet dissident scientists

Concern grows over Soviet dissident scientists

Western Marxism and Folklore: A Critical Introduction

MARXIST SOCIAL THEORY is enjoying an unparalleled influence in the contemporary intellectual life of the West, and its presence in the United States is no exception (Aronowitz 1981:ix). Well developed Marxist perspectives are increasingly evident in the social sciences, historiography, and literary criticism; so it is, perhaps, something of a surprise to discover the relative absence of a parallel discussion in folkloristics. The reasons for this absence and the possibilities for such a Marxist discourse particularly among English-speaking folklorists remain largely unexplored, although Fox has taken an initial step (1980). The present remarks are intended as another but more substantial initiative toward a continuing discussion. A full analysis of Marxist thought and folklore would require a discussion of several key topics: the status of folklore in the writings of Marx and Engels, the development of a Soviet folkloristics, the fate of Marxism in Western folkloristics, and conversely, the place of folklore in the development of Marxism outside the Soviet bloc and among Soviet dissidents. Previous discussions of these subjects have varied in quality and have lent an almost exclusive emphasis to Soviet practice or its rejection in the West (Dorson 1972; Fox 1980; Oinas 1973; Oinas and Soudakoff 1975; Sokolov 1950; Williams 1975; Zemljanova 1963). In a larger study in progress I discuss all of these areas and elaborate my theoretical views on the subject. In this instance, however, I wish to explore the most ignored of these topics-the place of folklore in the development of non-Soviet Marxism, specifically among selected and representative nonfolklorists whom I will generally refer to as Western Marxists. While folklorists have had little to say about Marxism and folklore, this Western Marxist tradition has demonstrated a high degree of interest in this relationship. Their commentary merits discussion both as an important chapter in a developing history of folkloristics (Ben-Amos 1973) and as a necessary background for future theorizing in this area. My chief contention is that the treatment of folklore by Western Marxists has a limited character. They intuitively view folklore as collective behaviors whose fundamental character is in some way inherently opposed to the dominant social order of state capitalism, an unclear formulation at best. Further,

Two Approaches to the Solution of Nationalities Problems in the USSR in the Writings of Soviet Dissidents

The colonial dependence of nations and their arbitrary de-nationalization in our time can neither be approved nor tolerated by democratic countries. It is also impossible to speak of human rights in countries where basic freedoms do not exist, and one basic human right is the right of every nationality to independence. Nevertheless, colonial-imperialistic relations continue to exist in today's world, and a glaring example is in the USSR.

Three Russian Writers and the Irrational: Zamyatin, Pil'nyak, and Bulgakov

The idea of man as an essentially irrational being has preoccupied some of the most influential of Russian thinkers, including the three important Soviet writers considered by Dr Edwards in this book. Since the 1917 Revolution the polemic between rationalists and irrationalists has become directly relevant to the way life is lived in the Soviet Union, and a knowledge of the irrationalist point of view is essential for an understanding of much of Soviet literature and of the foundations of Soviet dissidence. As with other titles in this series, this book is not intended simply for the specialist. The broad speculations arising from the subject will fascinate all those who take a serious interest in the Russian literary tradition; a tradition whose principal figures have been concerned to reject philosophical and political creeds that, in seeking to produce a perfect human being in a perfect society, point in fact towards a vision of hell.

Soviet dissidents: Helpers divided

Soviet dissidents: Helpers divided

Soviet Dissidents: Their Struggle For Human Rights. By Joshua Rubenstein. Foreword by Harrison Salisbury. Boston: Beacon Press, 1980. xvi, 304 pp. $12.95, cloth. $6.95, paper.

Soviet Dissidents: Their Struggle For Human Rights. By Joshua Rubenstein. Foreword by Harrison Salisbury. Boston: Beacon Press, 1980. xvi, 304 pp. $12.95, cloth. $6.95, paper.

Soviet Dissidents: Their Struggle for Human Rights by Joshua Rubenstein (Beacon Press; XV + 304 pp.; $12.95) - Religion in the Soviet Union (The Washington Papers, Vol. VIII) by Albert Boiter (Sage Publications for The Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, 88 pp.; n.p. [paper]) - On Soviet Dissent: Interviews with Piero Ostellino by Roy Medvedev edited by

Soviet Dissidents: Their Struggle for Human Rights by Joshua Rubenstein (Beacon Press; XV + 304 pp.; $12.95) - Religion in the Soviet Union (The Washington Papers, Vol. VIII) by Albert Boiter (Sage Publications for The Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, 88 pp.; n.p. [paper]) - On Soviet Dissent: Interviews with Piero Ostellino by Roy Medvedev edited by George Saunders (Columbia University Press; 158 pp.; $10.95) - Volume 24 Issue 6

On Soviet Dissent

An examination of the Soviet dissident movement traces the course of the democratic movement from Khrushchev's revelations about the crimes of Stalin through the 1970s.

Soviet dissidents: Another taken

Soviet dissidents: Another taken

Growing Soviet Dissidence

Growing Soviet Dissidence

Regional differentiation of living standards in the RSFSR: The issue of inequality

IN the Soviet Union there is considerable regional variation in most social welfare indicators. Housing space per capita, hospital beds per capita and retail trade turnover per capita, all, for example, differ widely from region to region. From relevant literature on Soviet welfare policies two hypotheses concerning regional differences in policy results can be gleaned. These hypotheses can be labelled as follows: 1) level of development and 2) equalization. According to the level-of-development hypothesis, the higher the level of economic development the higher the level of social services and benefits. While this hypothesis is rooted in analyses of the Stalin era, it is also frequently advanced as an explanation of policy patterns for the Khrushchev and Brezhnev-Kosygin periods. Stalin's goals involved rapid industrialization, the conversion of a backward, agrarian Russia into an industrial giant. Fainsod has asserted that the industrialization drive, beginning with the onset of the five-year plans in 1929, led to the repudiation of mass welfare and egalitarianism.' Welfare became not only a secondary consideration, but was also utilitarian in nature, serving primarily as a means of reinforcing industrialization.2 The level-of-development hypothesis thus holds that a maldistribution of funds and services in the welfare realm stems from the party elite's constant resolve to place a rapidly growing industrial output before all else. But have such concerns and policy patterns been perpetuated in the post-Stalin era? Osborn has argued that welfare policy is still geared towards the reinforcement of investment in industry. 3 Hence he regards a growing industrial base as the key explanatory variable accounting for the availability of investment funds for housing and for the improvement of living conditions in general. In a similar vein Mickiewicz has asserted that the Soviet pattern of development continues to favour the city, with 'life in the country . .. becoming qualitatively inferior to that of the cities'.4 The prominent Soviet dissident, Andrei Sakharov, has spoken of the distribution issue as follows: 'There is inequality among regions: Moscow and the larger cities are favoured in the distribution of products, living comforts, cultural services, and so on.'5

Muslim National Communism in the Soviet Union: A Revolutionary Strategy for the Colonial World and Who Are the Soviet Dissidents? (Ernest Stockdale Lecture, 1977.)

Journal Article Muslim National Communism in the Soviet Union: A Revolutionary Strategy for the Colonial World and Who Are the Soviet Dissidents? (Ernest Stockdale Lecture, 1977.) Get access Muslim National Communism in the Soviet Union: A Revolutionary Strategy for the Colonial World. By Alexandre A. Bennigsen and S. Enders Wimbush. Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press, 1979. 267 pp. (Publications of the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies, No. II.)£13.00.Who Are the Soviet Dissidents? (Ernest Stockdale Lecture, 1977.) By Alex Shtromas. London: Institute for the Study of Conflict. 1979. 19 pp. Pb:£0.60. John Lawrence John Lawrence Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 56, Issue 1, January 1980, Pages 169–170, https://doi.org/10.2307/2615781 Published: 01 January 1980

Soviet dissident charged

Soviet dissident charged

Soviet dissidents&' mail fails to go through

Soviet dissidents&' mail fails to go through